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[Aktungbby]

Having had to drop anchor in great haste in the treacherous Carquinez Strait on one occasion myself- having run out of fuel 500 feet off the marina entrance in a 10+ knot ebbtide with a rocky shore 50' to port and a great bridge footing 200 yards astern: as all skippers know, the anchor is the 'soul of the ship':

 

And after waiting for the yearly-fee boat-tow service for two hours....we couldn't recover the anchor and had to cut the line! As the 200' line swiftly paid out in the current; and at the last 10 feet , I only then noticed that, sitting in it's flush deck-locker unused for 7 years, it wasn't connected to the boat and I barely got it cleated just in time using deck mooring cleat and the bow-pulpit pipe to arrest the powerless Catalina's rearward drift

You enter the narrow 50 yard wide channel between the jetties under power. A brisk cross-channel wind and current make steering a challenge. All of a sudden at the worst possible moment–your engine sputters and dies! Desperate now, you lean down and push the starter button–nothing doing. You send your sailing partner forward to get the anchor over the side. Your partner yells back that the anchor line has tangled and jammed! The jetty rocks to port–like a Great White’s gaping mouth–loom closer and closer…

Is your sailboat anchor and her ground tackle ready to deploy in ten seconds or less? In an emergency that might be how long you have to get it down and get it set!

Paper or Metal Insurance Policy?

Forget about paper insurance policies. When you need insurance nothing beats a well tested boat anchor to keep you from disaster. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Without the proper ground tackle–all the parts of the umbilical cord between the boat and the anchor–your anchor might as well be down below in the cabin.

Consider that in an emergency, you may have just ten seconds to get your anchor over the side.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Having had to drop anchor in great haste in the treacherous Carquinez Strait on one occasion myself- having run out of fuel 500 feet off the marina entrance in a 10+ knot ebbtide with a rocky shore 50' to port and a great bridge footing 200 yards astern: as all skippers know, the anchor is the 'soul of the ship':

 

And after waiting for the yearly-fee boat-tow service for two hours....we couldn't recover the anchor and had to cut the line! As the 200' line swiftly paid out in the current; and at the last 10 feet , I only then noticed that, sitting in it's flush deck-locker unused for 7 years, it wasn't connected to the boat and I barely got it cleated just in time using deck mooring cleat and the bow-pulpit pipe to arrest the powerless Catalina's rearward drift

lol.

there are just too many snarky/humorous responses available at this point especially between ex-USN types.

seriously, were you steaming to Sacramento when you went afoul of fuel and the wind?

[Jimbuna]

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by KaleunMarco

lol.

there are just too many snarky/humorous responses available at this point especially between ex-USN types.

seriously, were you steaming to Sacramento when you went afoul of fuel and the wind?

No, we were just off Vallejo, slightly east of the I-80 Carqinez bridges returning eastbound from our every-Friday sailing(8 years!) in the SF Bay. Within hailing distance of the marina entrance, the motor sputtered and died as the evening ebbtide tide & the Sacramento River's 10-knot current combo forced us rearward. With absolutely no wind to even unfurl the 150% jib (my job as bowman), our only recourse was to swiftly drop anchor and summon the tow service. The boat being old, (5000.lbs) I didn't trust just one mooring cleat, so I threw a loop around the bow-pulpit pipe, and later the mast-base also. In two hours, having hauled the boat back up 150' directly over the anchor site, the tide probably got the anchor under a log; and when the tow vessel finally arrived, the 50lb. kedge was unretrievable for both of us pulling together. So we had to cut it...I saved 150' of very old line. Lesson learned: this was the first time I'd actually opened the anchor locker, much less used the thing!!? We were lucky! In 52 years of sailing, incl. a '69 summer as an 18 year-old YMCA instructor, this was my first open-water emergency anchoring.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

No, we were just off Vallejo, slightly east of the I-80 Carqinez bridges returning eastbound from our every-Friday sailing(8 years!) in the SF Bay. Within hailing distance of the marina entrance, the motor sputtered and died as the evening ebbtide tide & the Sacramento River's 10-knot current combo forced us rearward. With absolutely no wind to even unfurl the 150% jib (my job as bowman), our only recourse was to swiftly drop anchor and summon the tow service. The boat being old, (5000.lbs) I didn't trust just one mooring cleat, so I threw a loop around the bow-pulpit pipe, and later the mast-base also. In two hours, having hauled the boat back up 150' directly over the anchor site, the tide probably got the anchor under a log; and when the tow vessel finally arrived, the 50lb. kedge was unretrievable for both of us pulling together. So we had to cut it...I saved 150' of very old line. Lesson learned: this was the first time I'd actually opened the anchor locker, much less used the thing!!? We were lucky! In 52 years of sailing, incl. a '69 summer as an 18 year-old YMCA instructor, this was my first open-water emergency anchoring.

lmao....why didnt you ride the tide out the Golden Gate and on to Honolulu?

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